Sukrut is an institution committed to the promotion of knowledge and practice in psychoanalysis. Incorporated in 2003 to address challenges in mental health, she began to offer training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, supported with intersubjective studies and Group Relations. Professionals trained in Sukrut comfortably connect with the inner world of feelings so as to identify the toxicity that builds in the self and in systems.
Contact usSukrut is the only institution in India offering personal psychoanalysis and intersubjective education for the development of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists. Starting in 2003, a small group of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists trained in India and overseas, began to address challenges in mental health by applying the talking cure. Demand grew but there weren’t enough professionals available. Consequently, Sukrut began to offer an internship in psychoanalysis, supported with intersubjective study and seminars. The training draws on relational psychoanalysis which emphasizes the real-time presentation of internal dynamics within the therapeutic relationship, and distinguishes itself by emphasizing the effect of real interpersonal relationships on development. Sukrut psychotherapists privilege authenticity. They liberally self-disclose. They loathe separating transference from the actual professional relationship. They conceive transference and countertransference as features of all relationships.
The Inward Change Conference (ICC) is Sukrut’s flagship residential programme to train psychoanalytic psychotherapists. The internship accepts, to quote Rogers, ….. nurses, housewives, people in the business world, priests, ministers, teachers, youth. ie. people who are not ill and can benefit from therapy. These individuals attend the first phase of the three residential internships. Participation beyond the first phase requires discussion of intent to pursue a career in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and/or organization psychodynamics.
Excerpts from a recent announcement of the Inward Change Conference is given below.
Borrowing from Stolorow and Atwood to curate an inter-subjective perspective in the larger relational system in which psychological phenomena crystallize, and in which experience is continually and mutually shaped, the language in Sukrut is thus one of interacting subjectivities, reciprocal mutual influence, colliding organizing principles, conjunctions and disjunctions, attunements and mal-attunements – a vocabulary attempting to capture the endlessly shifting, inter-subjective context of intra-psychic experience – in the psychoanalytic situation, in the course of psychological development, and in psychodynamic consulting to organizations. Sukrut’s inter-subjective curriculum seeks to comprehend psychological phenomena not as products of isolated intra-psychic mechanisms, but as forming at the interface of reciprocally interacting worlds of experience.
Psychological phenomena cannot be understood apart from the inter-subjective contexts in which they take form (Stolorow, R. and Atwood, G. 1992. Contexts of Being: The Inter-subjective Foundations of Psychological Life. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press).
The Intersubjective Study and Seminars offered by Sukrut are integral to the internship process. Sukrut recommends commitment of a three to five-year period for professional study, application, and practice in areas that could range from offering individual psychotherapy to group work to consulting and teaching leadership and organization psychodynamics.
Part 1 covers the basics of Psychology and key Psychoanalytic theories. After completing Phase 2, you will be required to attend Part 2 of the Intersubjective Study & Seminars covering Eastern and Western Philosophy, Comparative Religion, Geo-economics, Geo-politics, Psycho-history. On completion of Phase 3, you will be required to attend the final Part 3 which is mostly a series of seminars on applications from psychoanalysis.
These sessions are conducted online, every Friday & Saturday (evenings) and Sunday (morning), from February to April and from July to October.
The INTERNSHIPs
Internships with Sukrut are informed by applied psychoanalysis and intersubjective study, thereby creating a containing, holding, protective environment, attuned to the needs of interns and providing them with high levels of close, careful listening and attention. They embrace Winnicott’s oft-quoted phrase that it is a joy to be hidden, but a disaster not to be found.
ICC has morphed into immersions across three phases, offered annually in Winter and Summer.
Phase 1 offers exploration into the world of feelings as central to decision-making. This stand-alone entry phase seeks to help individuals become aware of, make sense of, regulate, accept, express, and transform emotional experiences. It is based on an evolutionary understanding of feelings as an innate and adaptive system which helped us survive and thrive. Our feelings give us important information about the world, and about our wellbeing and the toxicity within; they inform us of our needs and guide our actions to meet them.
This phase is an exploration into the self. Acquiring new perspectives, in an atmosphere of sharing without being judged, opens new insights into a world of being (the internal world) and of becoming (the external world). The immersion also helps explore and arrive at new meaning-making and choice-making for the actual decisions that we take.
One can find meaning for the self by attending only Phase 1. One can also plan to go further into Phase 2, which invites deeper explorations into the self and its interface with systems. Participation beyond Phase 1 necessitates a process of discussion with a senior psychotherapist in Sukrut.
Who can attend?
You must be a Graduate in any subject, ideally a budding Psychologist, a Post-Graduate in Rehabilitation and Social Sciences with a few years work experience, passionate to explore the world of feelings and decisions.
How will I benefit by making this commitment?
The immersion will help clear cobwebs in the mind, and lead to authoritative presence.
Many interns planned their commitment like this:
> Attended Phase 1 in December, and attended Phase 2 after six months in April/May.
> After completing Phase 1 and upon selection for Phase 2, you will be required to attend Part 1 of the Intersubjective Study and Seminars.
> On completion of Phase 2, you will be advised to attend Phase 3 the following December, thereby completing the 03-phase internship in twelve months.
> After completing Phase 2 and upon selection for Phase 3, you will be required to attend Part 2 of the Intersubjective Study and Seminars.
> On completion of Phase 3 and Parts 1 and 2 of the Intersubjective Study and Seminars, you will be required to attend the final Part 3.
Sukrut will provide a Certificate on completion of all three phases of the internship and the intersubjective study & seminars.
On completion of Phase 3, it is likely that you will be invited to join Sukrut events for psychotherapeutic practice as well as program facilitation.
Phase 2 is an exploration into current roles as they emerge from explorations into the formation of identity. This phase also offers exploration into the authorization of the self in systems, based on international practices in Group Relations (GR).
Phase 3 is a continuation of unpeeling the unconscious in the self, and understand the links with key psychoanalytic theories. Interns will be required to explore repressed material in the personal unconscious.
Phase 2 and Phase 3 of ICC 25 Summer Program are also in April 25.
The Summer event is offered in April / May.
The programme Fee per participant is Rs 20,000.00 on room-sharing basis, inclusive of early-morning tea, breakfast, lunch, an evening snack, and dinner.
Limited bursaries are available to self-sponsored participants who will need to make a request in writing to the Conference Director.